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Workplace bullying often goes unnoticed, is tolerated

Posted on Sep 13, 2011 at 12:00 a.m.

In regard to the article you ran on bullying, I too was a victim of bullying in school, but I have never run into any worse bullying than that which goes unnoticed and even supported and tolerated in the workplace.

Workplace bullying is emotional abuse. Every job I have had I have encountered terrible bullying from both supervisors and co-workers, creating a very hostile work environment. It is awful to constantly worry that all of a sudden you could lose your job, creating a loss of a car payment, or house payment and just your overall economic security.

Bosses do this by just simple stares and dirty looks. Nitpicking about how long you are in the restroom, fussing about one being late (remember, one-third of us are always late, one-third of us are always early and one-third of us are on time). Threatening not to pay for one's break if one is more than two minutes late. Excuse me, but I do not carry a stopwatch with me to time my breaks. A boss making a big deal out of leaving an oven on, telling me only after I did this three times.

Then we have those note-carrying, clock-watching co-workers always watching for human errors so they can brown-nose and suck up to the boss. We are not allowed to like our jobs due to all of this that no one stops, and when you do bring it up, you find yourself suddenly unemployed.